I’m going to tell you a secret. Nearly everyone who runs a business thinks they’re bad at social media. And some of them are. But if you stare at your account day in and day out paralyzed by the thought of posting the “wrong thing” and then opt to not post at all (for 6 months), you’re not alone. The good news is, you can hire people to help you!

Let’s start with the basics. If you’re thinking about hiring someone to help with your social media, there are 3 job titles that you may come across: 1) social media manager, 2) publicist, and 3) influencer. The lines between these jobs are blurry, which is why you’ve probably gotten confusing and conflicting advice about which one to hire.

A restaurant in town had a grand opening last year and they hired me, a publicist and influencers. I took over the Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts and created and implemented a social strategy around the grand opening, including running ads and engaging with the list of bloggers and influencers attending the event. The publicist drove strategy around public facing media and made sure the client was incorporated in a relevant way. The writing the publicist did was key. Writing for the media is different than writing for social media. She also managed the logistics of the event. The influencers attended the event (and a preview night), took pictures and published posts on their social media and blogs.

You can see why the lines are blurry, right, especially between the social media manager and the publicist? Here is the difference.

A social media manager is the voice OF your brand.

A publicist is the voice FOR your brand.

Both are important, but they’re different jobs. When you hire me, I’ll work with you to determine what your branding points are, how to visually communicate them, bring on a photographer if I need to, and then I’ll build a digital strategy and implement it, all the while working to increase your follower count and engagement rate.

Now that we have some understanding about who does what, let’s get into how to hire a social media manager!

The 10 Essential Questions

• If I hire you, who will be writing the posts and managing my account? (Hint: it’s not always the person you’re meeting with and you need to know that up front.)

• How many other accounts do you manage?

• How many times a week will you be posting?

• Do you create unique posts for each platform, or auto-post from one account?

• Will you like and respond to comments, reviews, and direct messages?

• Who provides the photos and videos for the posts?

• Do you recommend we run targeted ads and sponsored posts?

• Will you do our Instagram Stories?

• How do you decide which hashtags to use, and how often do you change them?

• How do you help us get more followers and comments on our posts?

I asked my clients and fellow business owners what they would want to know before hiring a social media manager and here’s what they said.

• The person managing my account, how many other accounts do they manage?

• How do you learn the voice of the company/organization?

• What is your strategy for creating and implementing a successful campaign?

• What is your track record? What kind of growth should we expect?

• How much do I have to do and how much do YOU do?

• Do you need to know about the business you are going to work for?

• What type of social media do you generally recommend or work with? Why?

• How do you judge success?

If you’re looking to build and engage an online audience, hiring a PR agency isn’t always the answer. Learn how hiring a social media manager can help you reach the 3.84 BILLION people that log on to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for 6 1/2 hours EVERY DAY. If you’re ready to cross social media off of your list, schedule a one-on-one consultation now.

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What do you think? Have you interviewed or hired a social media manager? What questions do you wish you had asked?

Let me know in the comments!

HUGE shout-out to friend and Bitch, Amanda Virgillito, who helped me with the description of the publicist. If you need a publicist, she’s who I work with and recommend.

P.S. Pros and Cons of Switching to an Instagram Business Profile

P.P.S. 5 Ways a Social Media Manager Can Help You